Chapter 1

ASMASH
in a railway carriage one day hurled
me under the seat, entangled in broken telegraph
wires. No worse came of it than a shake of
those nerves which one needs for rifle shooting;
but as the bull's-eyes at a thousand yards were
thereby made too few on the target, I turned in
one night back again to my life on the water
in boyish glee, and dreamed a new cruise, and
planned a new craft, on my pillow.

It was
clear that no rowboat would serve on a
land-water voyage of this sort, for in the wildest
parts of the best rivers the channel is too narrow
for oars, or, if wide enough, it is often too shallow;
and the tortuous passages, the rocks and banks,
the weeds and snags, the milldams, barriers, fallen
trees, rapids, whirlpools, and waterfalls that
constantly occur on a river winding among hills,
make those very parts where the scenery is
wildest and best to be quite unapproachable in
such a boat, for it would be swamped by the
sharp waves, or upset over the sunken rocks,
which cannot be seen by a steersman.

Now these
very things which bother the "pair
oar," become cheery excitements to the voyager
in a canoe. For now, as he sits in his little bark,
he looks forward, and not backward. He sees all
his course, and the scenery besides. With one
sweep of his paddle he can turn aside when only
a foot from destruction. He can steer within an
inch in a narrow place, and can easily pass through
reeds and weeds, or branches and grass; can
work his sail without changing his seat; can
shove with his paddle when aground, and can
jump out in good time to prevent a bad smash.
He can wade and haul his craft over shallows, or
drag it on dry ground, through fields and hedges,
over dykes, barriers, and walls; can carry it by
hand up ladders and stairs, and can transport his
canoe over high mountains and broad plains in a
cart drawn by a man, a horse, or a cow.

Besides all
this, the covered canoe is far
stronger than an open boat, and may be fearlessly
dropped into a deep pool, a lock, or a millrace, and
when the breakers are high in the open sea or in
river rapids, they can only wash over the deck of
a canoe, while it is always dry within.

The canoe
is also safer than a rowing-boat,
because you sit so low in it, and never require to
shift your place or lose hold of the paddle; while
for comfort during long hours, for days and weeks
of hard work, the canoe is evidently the best,
because you lean all the time against a swinging
backboard, and when the paddle rests on your lap
you are at ease as in an arm-chair; so that, while
drifting along with the current or the wind, you
can gaze around, and eat or read, or sketch, or
chat with the starers on the bank, and yet, in a
moment of sudden alarm, the hands are at once
on the faithful paddle ready for action.

Finally, you
can lie at full length in the canoe,
with a sail as an awning for the sun, or a shelter
for rain, and you can sleep at night under its
cover, or inside it when made for that purpose,
with at least as much room for turning in your
bed as sufficed for the great Duke of Wellington;
or, if you are tired of the water for a time, you
can leave your boat at an inn--where it will not
he "eating its head off," like a horse; or you can
send it home, or sell it, and take to the road
yourself, or sink back again into the lazy cushions
of a first-class carriage, and dream you are seeing
the world.

But it
may well be asked from one who thus
praises the paddle, "Has he travelled in other
ways, so as to know their several pleasures? Has
he climbed glaciers and volcanoes, dived into caves
and catacombs, trotted in the Norway carriole,
ambled on an Arab, and galloped on the Russian
steppes? Does he know the charms of a Nile
boat, or a Trinity Eight, or a Yankee steamer, or
a sail in the Ægean, or a mule in Spain? Has
he swung upon a camel, or glided in a sleigh, or
sailed a yacht, or trundled in a Bantoone?"

Yes, he
has thoroughly enjoyed these and
other modes of locomotion, fast and slow. And
now having used the canoe in Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America, he finds the pleasure of the paddle
is the best of them all.

With such
advantages, then, and with good
weather and good health, the canoe voyage about
to be described was truly delightful.

This was
the first such cruise, but many others
followed. You may see a list of them in the
"Canoist," published by the Royal Canoe Club,
of which the Prince of Wales is Commodore, with
six hundred members, in all parts of the world.

The Rob
Roy Canoe was built of oak, with a
deck of cedar. She was made just short enough
to go into the German railway waggons; that is
to say, fifteen feet in length, twenty-eight inches
broad, nine inches wide, and weighed eighty
pounds. My baggage for three months was in a
black bag one foot square and six inches deep.
A paddle seven feet long, with a blade at each
end, and a lug sail and jib, were the means of
propulsion; and a pretty blue silk Union Jack was
the only ornament.
[footnote 1]

But, having
got this little boat, the difficulty was
to find where she could go to, or what rivers were
at once feasible to paddle on and pretty to see.

Inquiries in
London as to this had no result.
Even the Paris Boat Club knew nothing of French
rivers. The Rhine they knew but only as a
wished-for boundary, and it was soon pretty plain
that, after quitting the Rhine, my cruise must be
a voyage of discovery. Let us hope, then, that
this narrative will lessen the trouble, while it
stimulates the desire, of the numerous travellers
who spend their vacation aboard a canoe.
[footnote 2]

Not that
I shall attempt to make a handbook
to any of the streams. The man who has a spark
of enterprise would turn from a river of which
every reach was mapped and its channels duly
lettered. Fancy the free traveller, equipped for
a delicious summer of savage life, quietly
submitting to be cramped and tutored by a "Chart
of the Upper Mosel "in the style of the following
extract, which is copied literally from a Guide
book:--

(1) "Turn to
the r. (right), cross the brook,
and ascend by a broad and steep forest track (in
40 min.) to the hamlet of Albersbach, situate in
the midst of verdant meadows. In five min. more
a cross is reached, where the path to the l. must
be taken; in 10 min. to the r., in the hollow, to
the saw mill; in 10 min. more through the gate
to the r.; in 3 min. the least trodden path to the
l. leading to the Gaschpels Hof; after 1/4 hr. the
stony track into the wood must be ascended,"
&c, &c--From B-----'s Rhine, p.
94.

Yet this
sort of guide-book is not to be
ridiculed. It is useful for some travellers as a ruled
copy-book is of use to some writers. For first
tours it may be needful and pleasant to have all
made smooth and easy, to be carried in steamers
or railways like a parcel, to stop at hotels full of
English guests, and to ride, walk, or drive among
people who know quite well already just what you
will want to eat, and see, and do.

Year after
year it is enough of excitement to
some tourists to be shifted in squads from town
to town, according to the routine of an excursion
ticket. Those who are a little more advanced will
venture to devise a tour from the many pages of
Bradshaw, and with portmanteau and bag, and
hat-box and sticks, they find more than enough of
judgment and tact is needed when they arrive in
a night-train abroad, and must fix on an omnibus
in a strange town. Safe at last in the bedroom of
the hotel, they exclaim with a sigh, "Well, here
we are all right at last!"

But after
mountains and caves, churches and
galleries, rains and battle-fields, have been pretty
well seen, and after tact and fortitude have been
educated by experience, the tourist is ready for
new lines of travel which might have given him
at first more worry than pleasure, and these he
will find in deeper searches among the natural
scenery and national character of the very
countries he has only skimmed before.

The rivers
and streams on the Continent are
scarcely known to the English tourist, and all the
beauty and life upon them no one has well seen.

In his
Guide-book route, indeed, from town to
town, the tourist has crossed this and that
stream--has admired a few yards of the water, and has
then left it for ever. He is carried again on a
noble river by night in a steamboat, or is whisked
along its banks in a railway, and between two
tunnels he gets a moment's glimpse at the lovely
water, and lo it is gone.

But a
mine of rich beauty remains there to be
explored, and fresh gems of life and character are
waiting there to be gathered. These are not
mapped and labelled and ticketed in any handbook
yet; and far better so, for the enjoyment of such
treasures is enhanced to the best traveller by the
energy and pluck required to get at them.

On this
new world of waters, then, we are to
launch the boat, the man, and his baggage, for
we must describe all three,

My clothes
for this tour consisted of a complete
suit of grey flannel for use in the boat, and
another suit of light but ordinary dress for shore
work and Sundays.

The "Norfolk
jacket" is a loose frock-coat, like
a blouse, with shoulder-straps, and belted at the
waist, and garnished by six pockets.
[footnote 3]
With this
excellent new-fashioned coat, a something in each
of its pockets, and a Cambridge straw hat, canvas
wading shoes, blue spectacles, a waterproof
overcoat, and my spare jib for a sun shawl, there was
sure to be a full day's enjoyment defiance of
rain or sun, deeps or shallows, hunger or
ennnui.

Four hours'
work to begin, and after them three
of rest or floating, reading or sailing, and again a
three hours' heavy pull, and then with a swim in
the river or a bath at the inn, a change of
garments, and a pleasant walk, all was made quite
fresh again for a lively evening, a hearty dinner,
pleasant talk, books, pictures, letters, and bed.

All being
ready, and the weather very hot, at
the end of July, when the country had caught the
election fever, and M. P.'s went to scramble for
seats, and the lawyers to thicken the bustle, and
the last bullet at Wimbledon came "thud" on
the target, it was time for the Rob Roy to start.

______

[footnote 1:]
After the cruise the author had a better canoe
constructed, shorter, and narrower (but with the same name),
and in her he voyaged through Sweden, Norway and
Denmark, Holstein, and some German waters.

The account
of this voyage is given in "The Rob Roy
on the Baltic," 5th Edition (Low and Marston). The
recent improvements of the canoe are described in that
book, with woodcuts. The full description of a third
canoe for sleeping in during a six months' voyage is given
in "The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Rod Sea, and
Gennesareth, a canoe cruise in Palestine and Egypt and
the waters of Damascus," 6th Edition, with eighty
illustrations and maps (Murray). A fourth canoe was used in
the Zuyder Zee and among the isles of Holland and the
Friesland coast ; and the latest Rob Roy (Number 7)
ran through the Shetland Isles and the Orkneys, and
Scotch lakes. (Special hints from all these voyages will
be found in our
Appendix.)

[footnote 2:] The best German and Austrian maps were found to
be frequently wrong. They showed villages on the banks
which I found were a mile away in a wood, and so they
were useless to one who had made up his mind (a good
resolve) never to leave his boat.

[footnote 3:]
The same suit went also through the second, third,
and fourth voyages without a button damaged.